Renaissance Front Street Restoration will help host Rockin’ on the River later this month, a free concert that will take place on April 20 at 5 p.m. at the Front Street Gazebo in Dardanelle.

The concert will feature music by five local music acts: Street Water Band, Megan Morrison, Feedback, Some Guy Named Robb and the Irresponsibles, and Rawhide. The event is funded by local businesses and organizations, including Savannah’s Fine Dining, Dardanelle Area Chamber of Commerce and Liberty Bank.

“The concert is mainly to get people downtown and to give families an affordable entertainment experience,” said Barry Sims, who co-founded Renaissance Front Street Restoration with his wife Angie. “It’s local talent, and hopefully everyone will bring people from outside of town to these free events.”

The music featured at the concert will be rock-and-roll and country, and Sims said they would like to hold monthly or bi-monthly concerts featuring different genres of music.

“We would like to have gospel, bluegrass, jazz, or just whatever the businesses want,” Sims said. “As long as we can get the businesses to donate and get the musicians to do it at an affordable price. The musicians are basically doing it this time for free.”

Renaissance Front Street Restoration is an organization created two years ago that is working to renovate and improve Dardanelle’s downtown district.

“The Renaissance was formed to bring awareness to what Dardanelle has to offer in its downtown district, and to help rejuvenate the downtown district,” Sims said.

“We are holding family-oriented events down there at affordable prices. We would like to partner with all civic organizations in the town. We learned that the more clubs we can partner with, the more crowds we bring in to the downtown area.”

Clay Hooten with the Arkansas Jazz Educators is also helping to put on the event, which will act as a prelude to the Arkansas Jazz Festival taking place on April 26 and 27 in Dardanelle.

Angie Sims said that the Renaissance Front Street Restoration will sell barbecue plate lunches at the event, and that the concert is expected to end around 9 p.m.